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Monday, March 30, 2020

On March 16, my district began its switch to a fully digital-learning curriculum. Now, my district has also been implementing Brightspace (formerly Desire2Learn) as its learning management system for years, and we have used it to supplement our curriculum and for digital learning on the occasional snow day. However, we have never had to implement it to the degree which we are doing now to deliver our full curriculum for an undetermined amount of time. Even though I have a degree in Instructional Technology and am pursuing a doctorate in the field, I will admit that planning of this magnitude is HARD. Although I possess a great deal of theoretical knowledge in the subject area, real-life application is still difficult, especially considering the circumstances of being in the classroom one day and then being told that we are switching over to online learning immediately for who knows how long.Some things which I have learned through all of this in my own experience and from others

Neither you nor your students signed up to teach/take an online course back when school began last year. This is important, because an online course is so much different from a face-to-face course. There are those students who absolutely thrive in a solely, digitally-delivered curriculum, but most do not. It is okay if both you and your students are struggling with this.

Most likely, you have never received full training in how to teach an online course. As a result, do not expect that you are going to be good at it. Lowering your own expectations helps keep your goals realistic.

If you think that you can simply transfer your normal classroom to a virtual environment and that everything is going to be business as usual but just digital, think again. Online teaching is so much different from face-to-face.

Lowering student expectations does not mean lowering academic standards and rigor - it means being realistic. Do not forget that students are adjusting to all of this too, and they themselves have so many other disruptions going on in their own personal lives with which they are trying to deal. For many, school can no longer be their #1 priority.

It is okay if students are not fully learning the material. Remember that essentially even with all of our support and resources, they are teaching themselves the material. And if students do not learn the material, we will make adjustments, and that is where we will pick up when we eventually return face-to-face.

Every teacher and student in the world is having to deal with this situation, so you are not alone at all. Everything is going to be okay in the end, and there is only so much which you can control in all of this.

Remember that yours is not the only class which your students have. With that in mind, assign a realistic amount of work considering the situation.

Start out by using digital web apps which you and your students have already used in the classroom. Now is not the time to suddenly try out new digital tools, because then it becomes a learning curve for both you and your students.

Keep the assignments simple, meaningful, and worthwhile. If students can find the answers by Googling it (such as having them write out a translation of sentences), then you need to think outside of the box a bit more.

Create assignments which can be done purely on a device, not a computer. Many families are sharing a computer among 2-3 children. This is where I struggle the most in creating lessons.

Give students at least a 3-day deadline to complete the assignment and then chances to make up missed assignments. We cannot assume that students are now working on our timeline due to other circumstances going on in their lives.

What is a reasonable amount of material to cover daily? This tweet pretty much sums it up:

So here is what one of my classes has done for these previous two weeks of digital learning - in no ways should it serve as a template for distance learning. Right before we had to transition to a digital learning curriculum, we had finished up a chapter of Perseus et Rex Malus, so it just so happened that our first day of digital learning was going to begin with the introduction of a new reading. NOTE - I did not do any live synchronous sessions with students (Google Hangouts, Zoom) - that was a personal choice, because that meant students had to align their schedules with mine:Day 1

Introduced a new reading passage using a multiple choice Google Forms self-grading quiz. Because this was essentially a sight passage for students and the goal was comprehension, questions and answers were in English. I also glossed any new target vocabulary or icing words. Because it came from a CI novella, the reading itself contained lots of known recycled vocabulary and was pretty understandable on its own. We also had done lots of sight reading like this before in class, so the act of sight reading itself from this novella was not new to students. Students could complete the assignment three times, and I would take their highest score.

As a resource, since this was a sight passage for them, I also created a screencast of me translating the passage into English using Google Slides in order to help establish meaning. Students could view this resource as many times as needed and throughout the two weeks whenever they needed translation help.

Day 2

Students had a choice for this day - using the passage (which I provided as a link), students could either complete:

Again, students could reference the translation video as a resource. Students turned this assignment electronically into the class' dropbox.

Day 3

Today's assignment focused on vocabulary, so students could either complete:

a review GimKit of known vocabulary (the target goal was $950,000) OR

create a digital Pictionary Dictionary of 12 words from the passage using Clipart images. I gave students a list from which they had to choose 12 words. Students submitted this assignment electronically into the class' dropbox.

Day 4

Students viewed two short video clips on Google Forms and then compared/contrasted the video clips in English with events in the reading passage - where were things the same? Different? Why do you think the changes occurred? I only asked for a short paragraph response.

Day 5

Students completed a matching Google Forms of Latin cognates and derivatives using vocabulary in the reading passage. Students could compete this up to three times, and I would take their best score.

Day 6

As I had assigned grades from the previous week, I now gave students a catch-up day to complete any missing assignments.

By this point, I felt that I had exhausted going over the passage in as many ways as I could in a distance setting, so this day's assignment was to create an Invisibles Drawing based on choices which I gave them involving known vocabulary and words from the passage. Students took a picture of their drawing and submitted it me in the class' dropbox. I will use these pictures for some listening comprehension practice next week.

I leave you with this wise series of tweets from my IFLT friend Cecile Laine:

Friday, March 27, 2020

I write this blog post with a HEAVY caveat, because on paper, this sounds like a great idea, but during the actual execution of it with over 100 Latin 3 students accessing the audio files multiple times, there were some Google issues of which I was unaware. Proceed at your own caution if you wish to do this!Did you know that you can insert audio files into Google Forms and turn it into a listening comprehension activity? In this time of digital learning, I was looking for a way to address listening comprehension using Google Forms and came upon this. The downside of this activity is that it is a lot of work on the prep side.Watch the following video for directions

In trying this out this week with digital learning, I uploaded 10 audio files of individual sentences from a story which we had been reviewing and had students pick the picture (I re-used pictures from my sentence/picture activity) which best matched what they had heard. NOTE - below is a just a screenshot so do not click on the audio file - yes, already a number of you have tried!)

Now here is the caveat. When students attempted to download the audio files, soon they began to see a message stating that they could not download the files.

This appears to be a common issue among Google Form users, and unfortunately, Google Support has not done much to address this issue - I think that it has to do with too many downloads all at once so Google has set a limit. I ended up transferring the audio files to my digital learning management class page and had students listen to them that way to complete the assignment - not a true fix but it got the job done.Observations

What I like about this (when it works) is that students can listen to these audio clips as many times as they want in order to understand the message.

I did this activity at the end of two weeks of doing this particular reading in a digital environment. I did not want to rush into it, since students were essentially learning and teaching themselves this particular passage on their own (even with my support).

I used pictures as answer choices, but I can see giving students different types of answers based on the audio file prompt, such as "Which is the best response to this audio question?"

I can also see having students listen to a much longer passage (2-3 minutes) and asking questions about the passage.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Google Forms allows users to insert pictures into both the question and answer sections, so here is how I facilitated a post-reading picture/sentence matching activity for students using a known passage. However, it will require that you find digital images to insert into your Google Form. It is very easy to do, and if you set the Google Forms as a self-grading quiz, students can immediately see their scores.Directions

Open Google Forms.

Hover your mouse pointer over the "Untitled Question" section.

3. A picture icon should appear next to the "Untitled Question" section. Click on it to add an image.

4. A screen will appear which will now allow you to insert an image which you have already uploaded onto your computer, is already in Google Drive, already has a pre- existing URL, or you can do a Google search of images.

5. Once you upload your image, you can now write a question related to that image.

I could definitely seeing using this with the model sentences of Cambridge Latin Course!

Thursday, March 19, 2020

If you are wanting to incorporate videos as part of your digital lesson planning (and you've already been using EdPuzzle and want to add some variety), you can easily insert videos into a Google Forms and have students answer questions about them. Again, it is very easy to do, and if you set the Google Forms as a self-grading quiz, students can immediately see their scores.

Directions

Open up a new Google Forms

Push the Add Video icon.

On the screen which comes up, either do a search of a particular YouTube video or enter in its URL if you know it. NOTE - you may only use YouTube videos for this.

When you finish, click on Select.

You will now see your video on your Google Form. Add a title if you wish.

Click on the Add Video icon to insert another video or Add Question to insert a question.

Observations

Because you can only use YouTube videos, students may not be able to access it at school depending on your school's filter. My district does not allow students to view YouTube video using school Wi-fi.

My Latin 3s are currently reading Perseus et Rex Malus, and this week for their digital work, they were reading the last chapter where Perseus receives winged sandals in a dream. To cover the cultural aspect, I created a Google Forms, inserted two video clips (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and Clash of the Titans) of Perseus receiving winged sandals or some mode of transportation (Clash of the Titans has Perseus use the winged horse Pegasus), had students view them, and then asked students to answer a very short paragraph question where they were to compare/contrast the two video clips with the account in the passage.

Keep the video clips short. Students do not want to watch a 10-minute clip and then have to answer questions about it.

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Allow me to put on my Instructional Technologist hat for this blog post.

As the coronavirus continues to spread across this nation, more schools are heading to an extended 100% online delivery of curriculum, as they close in an effort to contain the virus. Even if your school has a digital learning management system, for many educators, the question is "So how do I deliver digital content for 10-14 days? It is one thing to create 'busywork' for students for a snow day, but what about 2-3 weeks?"

Over the next few blogposts, I will address ways in which one can use digital web tools and apps for online, digital learning (and hopefully for the delivery of Comprehensible Input). In this post, I will discuss how to create a reading comprehension assessment using Google Forms.

I love using Google Forms, because it has so many applications and is quite easy to use once one gets past the learning curve. However, I had always wanted to create a reading comprehension assessment using Google Forms, but I never knew how one could insert the text. Last year, I learned how to do it, and it is SO easy! Why did I not figure this out earlier?

If you are not familiar with how to set up Google Forms as a self-grading quiz, you can view the video below:

3. In the Form description section, add/write your reading passage. This will now allow students to see the passage when they answer questions.

4. Now you can begin adding questions and answer choices (multiple choice, short answer, drop down menu, checkboxes, etc).

Observations

I usually break up the passage over a few pages so that it is not all on one page and does not overwhelm students or force them to keep scrolling up and down to read the passage and then to answer the question (how to add sections in Google Forms).

When I break up the assessment into sections, I will have 3-4 questions per section.

I usually allow students to take assessment three times. Because it is a self-grading quiz, students learn which questions they missed and can receive feedback for incorrect answers.

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Just recently, my colleague John Foulk put a twist on a listening activity which we have been using as an assessment. He took our existing "Who is This?" activity (where as the teacher you say aloud a short description of particular characters in the target language from a story, and students write down which character it is) and turned it into a "Who Would Say This?" In Latin 2, we have been reading an adapted version of the "Mercury-as-a-1-day-old-baby" myth and all of his "adventures," such as sneaking out of the house, finding and killing a turtle, creating/inventing a lyre from the turtle shell and guts, stealing Apollo's cows, etc. There were a number of characters in the story, so John created "I...." statements about the characters for students to hear and to write down who would say this.Example:

Ego in agro laborabam et vidit puerum ducentem boves (I was working in the field and saw a boy leading cows)

Ego feci lyram e corpore testudinis (I made a lyre from the body of a turtle)

Meus filius vigilabat, sed ego dormiebam (My son was awake, but I was sleeping).

Ego super montes currebam (I was running over the mountains)

Observations

This was a great practice of having students hear the use of the 1st-person. Although the story was primarily written in the 3rd-person, students did not have any problems hearing the 1st person and recognizing which character would say the statement.

Students were very familiar with the story, so to hear sentences about characters now in the 1st person was not tricky.

This activity involved higher-order thinking as students had to determine who would say the statement.

This was a very easy activity to facilitate!

I suppose one could change this to 2nd person and implement it that way too.